An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Book III: Words
John Locke
Copyright © 2010–2015 All rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett
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First launched: July 2004
Last amended: August 2007
Contents
Chapter i: Words or language in general
145
Chapter ii: The signification of words
146
Chapter iii: General terms
148
Chapter iv: The names of simple ideas
155
Chapter v: The names of mixed modes and relations
158
Chapter vi: The names of substances
162
Chapter vii: Particles
175
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John Locke
Chapter viii: Abstract and concrete terms
176
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
177
Chapter x: The misuse of words
183
Chapter xi: The remedies of those imperfections and misuses
190
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vii: Particles
Chapter vii: Particles
1. Besides •words that name ideas in the mind, there are
many others that we use •to signify how the mind connects
ideas or propositions with one another. To communicate
its thoughts to others, the mind needs not only •signs of
the ideas it then has before it, but also •signs to show what
in particular it is doing at that moment with those ideas.
It does this in several ways. For example, ‘is’ and ‘is not’
are the general marks of the mind’s affirming or denying;
and without these there would be in words no truth or
falsehood. The mind also has ways of showing not only
how it is connecting the parts of propositions to one another,
but also how it is connecting whole sentences one to another,
giving them various relations and dependencies so as to
make a coherent discourse.
3. This part of grammar has, I suggest, been as much
neglected as some others have been over-diligently cultivated.
It is easy for men to work their way systematically through
cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds and supines.
With these and their like the grammarians have been diligent;
and even particles have in some languages been set out and
classified with a great show of exactness. But although
‘preposition’ and ‘conjunction’ etc. are names well known in
grammar, and the particles contained under them carefully
sorted into their distinct subdivisions, someone who wants to
show the right use of particles, and what significancy [Locke’s
word] and force they have, ·must look elsewhere than in
grammar books. He· must take a little more pains, scrutinize
his own thoughts, and observe in accurate detail the various
postures of his mind when he talks.
2. The words the mind uses to signify how it is connecting
the various affirmations and negations that it is bringing
together into a single continued reasoning or narration are
generally called particles. The proper use of particles is the
chief contributor to the clearness and beauty of a good style.
To think well, it isn’t enough that a man has ideas that
are clear and distinct, nor that he observes the agreement
or disagreement of some of them. He must also think
in sequence, and observe the dependence of his thoughts
and reasonings upon one another. And to express such
methodical and rational thoughts well, he needs words to
show what connection, restriction, distinction, opposition,
emphasis, etc. he gives to each part of his discourse. If he
gets any of these wrong he will puzzle his hearers instead
of informing them. So these words that aren’t the names
of ideas are of constant and indispensable use in language,
contributing greatly to men’s expressing themselves well.
4. Dictionaries usually explain these words through words
of another language that come nearest to their meaning; but
that isn’t good enough, for what they mean is commonly as
hard to grasp in the second language as in the first. They
are all marks of something the mind is doing or indicating;
so we need to attend diligently to the various views, postures,
stands, turns, limitations, exceptions, and various other
thoughts of the mind, for which we have no names—or
no good ones. There is a great variety of these, far more
than most languages have corresponding particles for; so
it is no wonder that most particles have several meanings,
sometimes almost opposite ones. In the Hebrew language
there is a particle consisting of one single letter, which is
said to have—was it seventy? anyway, certainly more than
fifty different meanings.
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5. ‘But’ is a particle, none more familiar in our language; and
someone who calls it a ‘discretive conjunction’ and says that
it corresponds to sed in Latin or to mais in French thinks he
has sufficiently explained it. But it seems to me to indicate
certain relations that the mind gives to various propositions
or parts of them that it joins by this monosyllable. First, ‘BUT
to say no more’; here the word indicates that the mind has
stopped in its course, before reaching the ·intended· end of
it. Secondly, ‘I saw BUT two planets’: here it shows that the
mind limits the sense to what is expressed, with a negation
of everything else. ·The next two examples are intended as
two halves of a single sentence·. Thirdly, ‘You pray; BUT it is
not that God would bring you to the true religion. . . ’: this
indicates a supposition in the mind of something’s not being
as it should be. Fourthly, ‘. . . BUT that he would confirm
you in your own’: this shows that the mind makes a direct
Chapter viii: Abstract and concrete terms
opposition between that and what goes before it. Fifthly,
‘All animals have sense; BUT a dog is an animal’: here the
word signifies little more than that the latter proposition is
joined to the former as the minor ·premise· of a syllogism.
[For example: ‘All men are mortal, But Socrates is a man, So Socrates is
mortal’. This use of ‘But’ was fairly standard well into the 20th century,
but seems now to have expired.]
6. No doubt this particle has many other significations as
well,. . . .but it isn’t my business to examine the word in all
its uses, let alone to give a full explication of particles in
general. What I have said about this word may lead us to
reflect on the use and force of particles in language, and
to think about the various actions of our minds when we
are speaking—actions that we indicate to others by these
particles. Some particles in some constructions, and others
always, contain within them the sense of a whole sentence.
Chapter viii: Abstract and concrete terms
1. If the ordinary words of language, and our common use
of them, had been attentively considered, they would have
thrown light on the nature of our ideas. The mind has a
power to abstract its ideas, and so they become essences,
general essences, by which sorts of things are distinguished.
Each abstract idea is distinct, so one such idea can never
be another, so the mind will by its intuitive knowledge see
the difference between any two ideas; and therefore no one
whole idea can ever be affirmed of another. We see this in the
common use of language, which doesn’t permit any abstract
word, or name of an abstract idea, to be affirmed of another
such. However certain it is that man is an animal, or is
rational. . . .everyone at first hearing sees the falsehood of
‘Humanity is animality’ and ‘Humanity is rationality’. All
our ·legitimate· affirmations are concrete ones, which don’t
affirm that one abstract idea is another, but join one abstract
idea to another. . . . Where substances are concerned, the
attributed abstract idea is most often the idea of a power; for
example, ‘A man is white’ signifies that the thing that has
the essence of a man has also in it the essence of whiteness,
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which is nothing but power to produce the idea of whiteness
in the eyes of sighted people. . . .
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
few that the schools constructed and put into the mouths
of their scholars could never come into common use or win
general approval. That looks to me like a tacit confession by
all mankind that they have no ideas of the real essences of
substances, since they have no names for any such ideas.
They would have had such names if their awareness of their
ignorance of them—·that is, of real essences of substances·—
not kept them from trying anything so futile. And, therefore,
although they had enough ideas to distinguish gold from a
stone, and metal from wood, they approached in a gingerly
fashion such terms as ‘goldenness’, ‘stonehood’, ‘metalicity’,
and ‘woodness’ [Locke gives these in Latin]—names that would
purport to signify the real essences of those substances, of
which they knew they had no ideas. . . . .
2. This difference among words points to a difference among
our ideas. We find upon enquiry that our simple ideas all
have abstract names as well as concrete ones: the former are
substantives, ·i.e. nouns·, the latter adjectives; as ‘whiteness’
and ‘white’, ‘sweetness’ and ‘sweet’. The same holds for ideas
of modes and relations—‘justice’ and ‘just’, ‘equality’ and
‘equal’. . . . For our ideas of substances we have very few if
any abstract names. For though the schools have introduced
‘animality’, ‘humanness’, ‘corporeity’ [Locke gives these in Latin]
and some others, they are infinitely outnumbered by the
substance-names that the schoolmen didn’t make fools of
themselves by trying to match with abstract ones. Those
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
1. From the preceding chapters it is easy to see what there
is in language, and how the very nature of words makes it
almost inevitable that many of them should be doubtful and
uncertain in their meanings. To examine how words can be
perfect or imperfect, we should first consider what our goals
are in using them; for their fitness to achieve those goals is a
measure of how perfect or imperfect they are. In earlier parts
of this work I have often mentioned in passing a double use
of words: we use them •for recording our own thoughts, and
•for communicating our thoughts to others.
for this purpose, any words will do. Sounds are voluntary
and arbitrary signs of ideas, and a man can use any words
he likes to signify his own ideas to himself. There will be no
imperfection in them, if he constantly uses the same sign
for the same idea, for in that case he can’t fail to have his
meaning understood, which is the right use and perfection
of language.
3. Secondly, as to communication by words, that too has a
double use: •Civil. •Philosophical. By their ‘civil use’ I mean
the use of words to communicate thoughts and ideas in a
manner that serves for upholding ordinary conversation and
commerce about the everyday affairs and conveniences of
2. In the first of these, the recording our own thoughts as
an aid to our memories, we are (so to speak) talking to ; and
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Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
•where the meaning of the word relates to a standard
civil life. By the ‘philosophical’ use of words I mean the kind
of use of them that can serve to convey precise notions of
things, and to express in general propositions certain and
undoubted truths that the mind may be satisfied with in
its search for true knowledge. [In Locke’s time the meaning of
‘philosophical’ extended to ‘scientific’.] These two uses of language
are very different, and one needs much less exactness than
the other, as we shall see.
that isn’t easy to know (·sections 11–12·), and
•where the meaning of the word and the real essence
of the thing are not exactly the same.
(These are difficulties that affect the meanings of various
words that are nevertheless intelligible. I needn’t discuss
ones that aren’t intelligible at all, such as a name for a simple
idea that the hearer can’t acquire because of a lack in his
sense-organs or his faculties. . . .) In all these cases we shall
find an imperfection in words in their particular application
to our different sorts of ideas. When I get into the details,
we shall find that the names of mixed modes are most liable
to doubtfulness and imperfection for the first two of these
·four listed· reasons, and when the names of substances are
defective it is usually for the third and fourth reasons.
4. The chief end of language in communication is to be
understood, and words don’t serve well for that end—whether
in everyday or in philosophical discourse—when some word
fails to arouse in the hearer the idea it stands for in the mind
of the speaker. Sounds have no natural connection with our
ideas; they get their meanings from the arbitrary decisions
of men; so when they are doubtful and uncertain in their
meaning (which is the imperfection I am are speaking of),
the cause of this lies in the •ideas they stand for rather than
in any •word’s being an inferior sign for a given idea—for in
that respect they are all equally perfect. So, what makes
some words more doubtful and uncertain in their meanings
is the difference in the ideas they stand for.
6. Many names of mixed modes are liable to great uncertainty and obscurity in their meanings ·for either of two
reasons·. One is that many complex ideas are extremely
complex. For words to be serviceable in communication,
they must arouse in the hearer exactly the same idea they
stand for in the speaker’s mind. Without this, men fill one
another’s heads with noise and sounds but don’t convey their
thoughts or lay their ideas before one another. But when
a word stands for a very complex idea whose constituent
simpler ideas are themselves complex, it isn’t easy for men
to form and retain that idea exactly enough for the name in
common use to stand for exactly the same precise idea. That
is why men’s names of very complex ideas, such as most of
the moral words, seldom have exactly the same meaning for
two different men. [See note on ‘moral’ at the end of v.12.] Not only
does one man’s complex idea seldom agree with another’s,
but it also often differs from the idea that he himself had
yesterday or the one he’ll have tomorrow.
5. The idea that each word stands for must be learned and
remembered by those who want to exchange thoughts and
have meaningful conversations with others in the language
in question. ·There are four kinds of situation where· this is
especially hard to achieve:
•where the idea a word stands for is very complex,
and made up of many constituent ideas put together
(·discussed in section 6·),
•where the ·constituent parts of the· idea the word
stands for have no certain connection in nature, and
so no settled standard anywhere in nature by which
to correct the idea (·sections 7–10·),
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7. Most names of mixed modes lack standards in nature in
terms of which men could correct and adjust their meanings;
and that makes them very various and doubtful. They are
collections of ideas that the mind has put together to suit its
own notions and in the furtherance of its own conversational
purposes, not intending to copy anything that really exists
but merely to name and sort things according to whether they
agree with the archetypes or forms it has made. . . . Names
that stand for collections of ideas that the mind makes at
pleasure are bound to have doubtful meanings when such
collections are nowhere to be found constantly united in
nature. . . . What the word ‘murder’. . . .signifies can never be
known from things themselves. Many parts of the complex
idea of murder are not visible in the murderous action itself:
the intention of the mind, which is a part of ·the idea of·
murder, has no necessary connection with the outward and
visible action of the murderer; and the pulling of the trigger
through which the murder is committed—possibly the only
visible feature of the action—has no natural connection with
those other ideas that make up the meaning of the word
‘murder’. All those ideas are united and combined only by
the understanding, which unites them under one name; but
when this is done without any rule or pattern it is inevitable
that the meaning of the name should be different in the
minds of different men.
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
bounds of propriety. Also, the rule of propriety itself is
indeterminate: it is often matter of dispute whether this or
that way of using a word conforms to propriety of speech. So
the names of such very complex ideas are naturally liable
to the imperfection of lacking securely known and stable
meanaings, and don’t always stand for the same idea in
·the minds of· speaker and hearer, even when they want to
understand one another. . . .
9. Doubtfulness over the meanings of the names of mixed
modes comes partly from how they are ordinarily learned.
How do children learn languages? To make them understand
what the names of simple ideas, or of substances, stand for,
people ordinarily show children the thing of which they want
them to have the idea; and then repeat the name that stands
for it—‘white’, ‘sweet’, ‘milk’, ‘sugar’, ‘cat’, ‘dog’. But as for
mixed modes, especially the most important of them, moral
words, the sounds are usually learned first; and then to
know what complex ideas they stand for the child must look
to explanations by adults or (more commonly) is left to find
out for himself through his own observation and hard work.
And since not much observation or hard work is expended
on the search for the true and precise meanings of names,
these moral words are in most men’s mouths little more
than bare sounds; and when they have any meaning it is
for the most part very loose and undetermined, and thus
obscure and confused. [The remainder of the section is a
lively complaint about the consequences of this situation in
academic debates, especially on theological and legal topics.
It concludes:] In the interpretation of laws, whether divine
or human, there is no end. Comments beget comments, and
explanations provide fodder for yet further explanations. . . .
Many a man who was pretty well satisfied about the meaning
of a text of scripture. . . .at a first reading has quite lost the
8. It is true that common use—the ‘rule of propriety’—is of
some help in settling the meanings in a language. It does
this pretty well for ordinary conversation; but in the absence
of any authority to establish the precise meanings of words,
common use doesn’t suffice to fit them for philosophical
discourses; because almost every name of any very complex
idea has a great latitude in common use, and can be made
the sign of widely different ideas without going beyond the
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sense of it through consulting commentators! ldots. I don’t
say this with the thought that commentaries are needless,
but only to show how uncertain the names of mixed modes
naturally are, even in the mouths of those who had both
the intention and the ability to speak as clearly as language
would let them.
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
complex ideas that are the meanings of substance-names are
supposed to fit with these real constitutions, or ‘essences’ as
they are apt to be called. But they are utterly unknown to us,
so any sound that is meant to stand for one of them must be
very uncertain in its application. It will be impossible to know
what things are properly called ‘horse’ or ‘antimony’ when
those words are put for real essences of which we have no
ideas at all. Thus, when the names of substances are taken
in this way, and referred to standards that can’t be known,
their meanings can never be corrected and established by
those standards.
[Section 10 points out that Locke’s view is confirmed by
the amount of trouble we take trying to understand what
great writers of the past meant by their writings. This holds
especially for ones dealing with ‘truths we are required to
believe, or laws we are ·required· to obey’. Where less is at
stake, we are less concerned with exact meanings.]
13. Secondly, what the names of substances immediately
signify are the simple ideas ·of qualities· that are found
to co-exist in the substances; so these, united as they are
in the substance in question, are the proper standards by
which to test and adjust the meanings of substance-names.
But these patterns don’t serve the purpose well enough to
protect the names from a variety of uncertain meanings.
The simple ideas that are united in a single substance are
very numerous, and all have an equal right to enter into the
complex idea that the specific name is to stand for; so people
who want to talk about the same thing nevertheless form very
different ideas about it; and so their name for it unavoidably
comes to mean different things for different men. [In the
remainder of this section Locke explains why so many simple
ideas are eligible for inclusion in the meaning of a given
substance name. Most of them concern powers to interact
thus and so with other things; the number of such powers
(for a given kind of substance) multiplied by the number of
kinds of ‘other thing’ yields a formidable product; Locke calls
it ‘almost infinite’. And when men freely choose to make
certain selections from this multitude, Locke remarks, it is
inevitable that their complex ideas of substances will be very
11. Whereas the meanings of the names of mixed modes
are uncertain because there are no real standards existing
in nature by which to adjust those ideas, the names of
substances have doubtful meanings for a contrary reason—
namely because the ideas they stand for are supposed to
conform to the reality of things, and are referred to standards
made by nature. In our ideas of substances we are not
free as we are with mixed modes simply to choose what
combinations we want as criteria to rank and name things
by. If we want our names to be signs of substances and
to stand for them, we must follow nature, suit our complex
ideas to real existences, and regulate the meanings of their
names with guidance from the things themselves. Here we do
have patterns to follow, but they are patterns that make the
meanings of the names very uncertain, because the patterns
either can’t be known at all, or can be known only imperfectly
and uncertainly.
12. The names of substances have a double reference in
their ordinary use. First, sometimes they are made to stand
for things’ real constitutions—the constitutions that are the
centre and source of all the things’ properties. And so the
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various, and thus that the meanings of substance-names
will be very uncertain.]
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
very finely divided matter passing through the channels of
the nerves. It wasn’t so easy to agree on whether it was to be
called ‘liquor’ or not, but they came to think that this wasn’t
worth wrangling over.
[Section 14 continues with the topic of the numerousness
and variety of the eligible simple ideas.]
[In section 17 Locke discusses gold, the number and variety
of its qualities and powers, and the resulting potential for
uncertainty and interpersonal difference in the meaning of
‘gold’.]
[In section 15 Locke concedes that most of our names for
substances are determinate and uniform enough for everyday purposes, but ‘in philosophical enquiries and debates,
where general truths are to be established and consequences
drawn from positions laid down’, he insists, they are not.]
18. From what I have said it is easy to see that the names of
simple ideas are the least liable to mistakes, for the following
·two· reasons. First: the ideas they stand for, each being
just one single perception, are easier to acquire and to retain
clearly than are the more complex ones. Second: they are
never associated with any essence except the perception that
they immediately signify, whereas the names of substances
run into trouble through being associated with something
else. Men who don’t use their words perversely or deliberately
start quarrels seldom make mistakes involving the use and
meaning of the names of simple ideas. ‘White’ and ‘sweet’,
‘yellow’ and ‘bitter’, carry a very obvious meaning with them,
which everyone precisely comprehends or easily sees that he
is ignorant of. But what precise collection of simple ideas
‘modesty’ or ‘frugality’ stand for in someone else’s use isn’t so
certainly known. And however apt we are to think we know
well enough what is meant by ‘gold’ or ‘iron’, the precise
complex idea that others make them the signs of isn’t so
certain; and I think it seldom happens that a speaker makes
them stand for exactly the same collections as the hearer
does. . . .
16. This is a natural and almost unavoidable imperfection
in almost all names of substances, as soon as we move
from confused or loose notions to stricter and more precise
enquiries. . . . I was once in a meeting of very learned and
able medical men when the question arose as to whether any
liquor [= ‘fluid’] passes through the filaments of the nerves.
After the debate had gone on for a good while, with a variety
of arguments on each side, I suggested that before carrying
on with this dispute they should first make sure that they
all meant the same thing by ‘liquor’, and what they meant
by it. (I had for some time suspected that most disputes
are about the meanings of words more than they are about
a real difference in the conception of things.) At first they
were a little surprised at my proposal; everyone who was
there thought he understood perfectly what the word ‘liquor’
stands for; and it is a tribute to their qualities of intellect
that they didn’t treat the proposal as a very frivolous or
extravagant one. They agreed to go along with my suggestion,
and that led them to discover that the meaning of that
word wasn’t as settled and certain as they had all imagined,
and that each of them had made it a sign of a different
complex idea. This showed them that the core of their
dispute concerned the meaning of that term, and that they
didn’t differ much in their opinions about some fluid and
19. The names of simple modes are second only to those of
simple ideas in their freedom from doubt and uncertainty
(and for the same reasons). This is especially true of names
of shapes and numbers. Who ever mistook the ordinary
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meaning of ‘seven’ or of ‘triangle’? In general the least
complex ideas in every kind have the least dubious names.
Chapter ix: The imperfection of words
themselves and others, and in the mistakes in their disputes
and in their thinking, much of the trouble comes from the
uncertain or wrong meanings of words. So much so, indeed,
that we have reason to think that defects in words are a
large obstacle to getting knowledge. It is especially important
that we should be carefully warned about this ·confusion of
language· because some people, so far from seeing it as a
drawback, have studied the arts of increasing it, giving them
the reputation of learning and subtlety, as we shall see in the
next chapter. I’m inclined to think that if the imperfections
of language, as the instrument of knowledge, were more
thoroughly weighed, a great many of the controversies that
make such a noise in the world would cease, and there would
be a more open road than we now have to knowledge, and
perhaps to peace also.
20. So •mixed modes that are composed of only a few obvious
simple ideas usually have names whose meanings are not
very uncertain. But the names of •mixed modes that include
a great number of simple ideas are commonly of a very
doubtful and undetermined meaning, as I have shown. The
names of substances. . . .are liable yet to greater imperfection
and uncertainty, especially when we come to a philosophical
use of them.
21. Given that the great disorder in our names of substances
comes mostly from our lack of knowledge, and from our
inability to penetrate into their real constitutions, you may
be wondering why I call this an imperfection in our words
rather than in our understandings. This question seems so
reasonable that I think I must explain why I have followed
this method. When I first began this treatise on the understanding, and for a good while after, it didn’t occur to me that
it needed to include any consideration of words. But after I
had dealt with the origin and content of our ideas, I began to
examine the extent and certainty of our knowledge; and then
I found that knowledge is so closely connected with words
that very little could be said clearly and relevantly about it
unless attention were first paid to the power of words and
to how they have meaning. Knowledge has constantly to do
with propositions; and though it is ultimately about things,
it gets to things so much by the intervention of words that
they seemed hardly separable from our general knowledge.
At least words interpose themselves so much between our
understanding and the truth that it’s trying to think about
and grasp that their obscurity and disorder often cast a
mist before our eyes (like fogged glass), and intrude on
our understandings. In the fallacies that men inflict on
[In section 22 Locke says that the dependence of meaning on
‘the thoughts, notions, and ideas’ of the speaker implies that
men must have trouble understanding speakers of their own
language; and that the trouble is magnified when one tries to
understand texts written far away and long ago in a foreign
language. Therefore ‘it would become us to be charitable to
one another in our interpretations or misunderstanding of
those ancient writings’.]
23. The volumes of interpreters and commentators on the
Old and New Testaments are manifest proofs of this. Even
if everything said in the text is infallibly true, the reader
can’t help being very fallible in his understanding of it. We
shouldn’t be surprised that the will of God, when clothed in
words, should be liable to the doubt and uncertainty that
inevitably goes with verbal communication; bear in mind
that even his Son, while clothed in flesh, was subject to all
the weaknesses and drawbacks of human nature, except
for sin. We ought to magnify God’s goodness in spreading
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before all the world such legible testimony of his works and
his providence, and giving all mankind a light of reason
that is bright enough so that anyone who seeks the truth,
even if he didn’t have help from written word, couldn’t avoid
concluding that there is a God and that he owes obedience to
him. So •the precepts of natural religion are plain and very
intelligible to all mankind, and seldom disputed; and •other
Chapter x: The misuse of words
revealed truths, conveyed to us by books and languages, are
liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties
that words bring with them. I think, then, that we would do
well to be more careful and diligent in observing •the former,
and less dogmatic, confident, and bullying in imposing our
own sense and interpretations of •the latter.
Chapter x: The misuse of words
[In sections 3–4 Locke rails against those who take words
that do have respectable common meanings and ‘by an
unpardonable negligence’ use them ‘without any distinct
meaning at all’. In everyday life and speech men do what
is needed to make themselves understood; but in academic
debates there is no pressure to be intelligible to others. On
the contrary, talking without clear meaning is a device for
protecting oneself against being revealed to be wrong. Locke
concludes:] When a person has no settled notions, drawing
him out of his mistakes is like expelling a homeless person
from his home!
[The word ‘misuse’ replaces Locke’s ‘abuse’. The latter word was not as
intensely judgmental then as it is today, so that Locke could use it often
without sounding shrill, as ‘abuse’ does to our ears.]
1. In addition to language’s natural imperfection, and the
obscurity and confusion that it is so hard to avoid in the
use of words, there are several wilful faults and failures that
men are guilty of, making words less clear and distinct in
their meanings than they need to be. ·I shall deal with one
of these in sections 2–4, a second in 5, a third in 6–13, a
fourth in 14–16, a fifth in 17–21, a sixth in 22·.
2. The first and most palpable misuse is using words
without clear and distinct ideas, or—even worse—using
signs without anything being signified. This occurs in two
ways.[The section continues with the first of the two, namely
the founders of sects and systems who coin new words
without giving them respectable meanings. If you want
examples, Locke concludes:] you will get plenty of them
from the schoolmen and metaphysicians, in which I include
the disputing scientists and philosophers of recent times.
5. Secondly, another great misuse of words is inconstancy
in the use of them. It is hard to find a discourse on any
subject, especially a controversial one, in which the same
words—often ones that are crucial to the argument—are
not used sometimes for one collection of simple ideas and
sometimes for another. [The section continues with an
explanation of why this is ‘plain cheat and abuse’, and of
what makes it so serious. Locke asks whether we would
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like to do business with someone who uses ‘8’ sometimes for
eight and sometimes for seven. He continues:] In arguments
and learned disputes the same sort of proceeding is often
mistaken for wit and learning. I see it as a greater dishonesty
than the misplacing of counters in calculating a debt; and
the cheat is greater by the amount that truth is worth more
than money.
Chapter x: The misuse of words
causes, and sometimes win respect and admiration, by
displays of idle subtlety through which they ‘render language
less useful than its real defects would have made it’—an
achievement of which illiterate people are not capable.]
12. This mischief hasn’t been confined to logical niceties, or
mind-teasing empty speculations. Rather, it has •invaded the
important affairs of human life and society, •obscured and
tangled the significant truths of law and divinity, •brought
confusion, disorder, and uncertainty into the affairs of
mankind, and •harmed the two great guides, religion and
justice—if not destroying them then at least making them
mainly useless. Most of the commentaries and disputes
concerning the laws of God and man have served only to
make the meaning more doubtful, and to tangle the sense.
All those intricate distinctions and fine points have merely
brought obscurity and uncertainty, leaving the words more
unintelligible and the reader more at a loss! That is why
rulers are easily understood when giving ordinary spoken or
written commands to their servants, but are not easily understood when they speak to their subjects in their laws. . . .
6. Thirdly, another misuse of language is intentional
obscurity—either giving old words new and unusual meanings without explaining them, or introducing new and ambiguous terms without defining them, or combining words
in such a way as to defeat their ordinary meanings. The
Aristotelian philosophy has been most conspicuous in doing
this, but other sects haven’t been wholly clear of it. [In the
rest of this section Locke continues the attack on people who
shelter under the obscurity of their words, mentioning in
passing the view that ‘body’ and ‘extension’ are synonymous,
which he says is easily refuted by attention to the ordinary
meanings of those words. See II.xiii.11.]
[Sections 7–8 continue the angry attack on those who make
careers and reputations out of wilful obscurity.]
13.. . . .Mankind’s business is to know things as they are,
and to do what they ought, and not to spend their lives in
talking about things or tossing words to and fro. So wouldn’t
it be good for us if the use of words were made plain and
direct, and if our language—which we were given for the
improvement of knowledge and as a bond of society—were
not employed to •darken truth and •unsettle people’s rights,
to •raise mists and •make both morality and religion unintelligible? Or if •these things do go on happening, wouldn’t it
be good if they stopped being thought of as signs of learning
or knowledge? ·That completes my discussion of the third of
the misuses of words that I listed in section 1·.
9.. . . .The best way to defend strange and absurd doctrines
is to guard them with legions of obscure, doubtful, and
undefined words. Yet that makes these retreats more like
dens of robbers or holes of foxes than like fortresses manned
by sturdy warriors; and what makes it hard to get them—·the
absurd doctrines·—out of their retreat isn’t their strength
but rather the dark tangle of briars and thorns they are
surrounded with. Because untruth is unacceptable to the
mind of man, the only defence left for absurdity is obscurity.
[In sections 10–11 Locke speaks of ‘this learned ignorance’,
and condemns the practice of those who advance their own
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Chapter x: The misuse of words
its •extension and shape. That is why we always speak of
matter as one, because it contains nothing but the idea of
a solid substance that is everywhere the same, everywhere
uniform. So we don’t think or speak of different matters
in the world, any more than we do of different solidities;
whereas we do think and speak of different bodies, because
extension and shape are capable of variation. But solidity
can’t exist without extension and shape, ·so wherever there
is matter there is body, as well as vice versa·. So when
some philosophers took ‘matter’ to be the name of something
really existing in that abstract form—·possessing only the
qualities mentioned in the definition of ‘matter’·—they set off
the obscure and unintelligible discussions and disputes that
have filled the heads and books of philosophers concerning
‘materia prima’—first matter, conceived in Aristotelian philosophy as undifferentiated matter, lacking qualities that would
differentiate parts of it from one another. I leave it to you to
think about how many other examples of this trouble there
have been. But I will say this: We would have many fewer
disputes if words were taken for what they are, the signs of
our ideas only, and not for things themselves. For when we
argue about ‘matter’ or the like, we are really arguing only
about the idea we express by that word, without regard for
whether that precise idea agrees to anything really existing
in nature. . . .
14. Fourthly, another great misuse of words is taking them
for things. Although this in some degree concerns names of
all kinds, it particularly affects names of substances. [As
this section progresses, we find that by ‘taking words for
things’ Locke means ‘uncritically assuming that certain noun
phrases in which one has been indoctrinated stand for real
things’. For example, someone brought up in the Aristotelian
philosophy never doubts that phrases like ‘substantial form’,
‘vegetative soul’ and ‘abhorrence of a vacuum’ each stand
for something real. Locke also gives examples from the
vocabularies of Platonists and Epicureans.]
15. Attentive reading of philosophical writers gives one
plenty of examples of how the understanding is led astray
by taking names for things. I shall present just one familiar
example. There have been many intricate dispositionutes
about ‘matter’, as if there were some such thing really in
nature, distinct from body; as it is evident that the idea
for which the word ‘matter’ stands is different from that
for which ‘body’ stands. If those two ideas were the same,
the words would be interchangeable in all contexts, which
they are not: it is all right to say ‘There is one matter of all
bodies’ but not to say ‘There is one body of all matters’; we
can say that one body is bigger than another, but it would
sound wrong to say that one matter is bigger than another
(and I don’t think anyone ever does say this). What makes
the difference? Well, although matter and body aren’t really
distinct—·that is, aren’t distinct things·—and so wherever
there is one there is the other, yet the words ‘matter’ and
‘body’ stand for two different conceptions, one of them being
incomplete, and a part of the other. For ‘body’ stands for
a •solid extended shaped substance, of which ‘matter’ is a
partial and more confused conception, apparently standing
for the •substance and solidity of body, without taking in
[In section 16 Locke expresses pessimism about curing
anyone of such a verbal fault if he has lived with it for many
years. This, he says, is a major reason why it is so hard to
get men to give up their errors, ‘even in purely philosophical
opinions, and ones where their only concern is with truth’.]
17. Fifthly, another misuse of words is to set them in the
place of things that they don’t and can’t signify. ·My only
examples of this are attempts to use words to signify the
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Chapter x: The misuse of words
19. This lets us explain why with mixed modes any change
in the simple ideas entering into the complex one results in
a new species, as can plainly be seen with ‘manslaughter’,
‘murder’, ‘parricide’. The reason is that the complex idea
signified by such a name is the real as well as nominal
essence; and there is no secret reference of that name to any
essence other than that. But with substances it is not so. It
may happen that one man includes in his complex idea of
what he calls ‘gold’ something that another omits, and vice
versa; but they don’t usually think they are talking about
different species. That is because they secretly mentally
assume that the word ‘gold’ is tied to a real unchanging
essence of an existing thing, on which depend the properties
included in the complex idea(s). When someone adds to his
complex idea of gold the ideas of fixedness and solubility in
aqua regia, which he had previously left out, he isn’t thought
to have changed the species he is talking about. Rather, he
is thought only to have acquired a more complete idea by
adding another simple idea that is always in fact joined with
the others of which his former complex idea consisted. But
relating the name to a thing of which we have no idea, far
from helping us, merely serves to increase our difficulties.
When the word ‘gold’ is used to stand merely for a more or
less complete collection of simple ideas, it designates that
sort of body well enough for everyday purposes; but when
it is tacitly related to the real essence of that species, the
word comes to have no meaning at all, because it is put for
something of which we have no idea, so that it can’t signify
anything in the absence of the actual gold. You may think
that there is no difference here; but if you think about it
carefully you will see that •arguing about gold in name—·that
is, arguing about it in the abstract, without actually having
any on hand·—is quite different from •arguing about an
actual portion of the stuff, e.g. a piece of gold laid before us.
real essences of substances; I shall discuss this through five
sections·. When we affirm or deny a proposition about some
sort of substance, knowing only its nominal essence, we
usually tacitly try to, or intend to, name the real essence of
that sort of substance. When a man says Gold is malleable,
he means and wants to get across more than merely
What I call ‘gold’ is malleable,
though truly that is all the sentence amounts to. Rather, he
wants it to be understood that
Gold, i.e. what has the real essence of gold, is
which amounts to saying that malleableness depends on
and is inseparable from the real essence of gold. But
since he doesn’t know what that real essence consists in,
what he connects malleableness with in his mind is really
not that unknown essence but only the sound ‘gold’ that
he puts in place of it. [The section then discusses futile
debates about the proper definition of ‘man’, which have to
be understood—Locke says—as concerning what qualities
are inevitable consequences of the real essence of man.]
18. It is true that the names of substances would be much
more useful, and propositions made with them would be
much more certain, if the ideas in our minds that they
signified were the real essences of the substances. It is
because of our lack of ·knowledge of· those real essences
that our words convey so little knowledge or certainty when
we talk about substances. So the mind is just trying to
remove that imperfection as far as it can when it makes
it a substance-name secretly stand for a thing having that
real essence, as if that would somehow bring it nearer to
the real essence. . . . Actually, far from •lessening our words’
imperfection, this procedure •increases it; for it is a plain
misuse to make a word stand for something that it can’t be
a sign of because our complex idea doesn’t contain it.
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20. Men are encouraged to ·try to· use names of species of
substances to designate the real essences of the species
by their supposition that nature works regularly in the
production of things, and sets the boundaries to each species
by giving exactly the same real internal constitution to each
individual that we rank under one general name. ·See
vi.14–18·. Yet anyone who observes their different qualities
can hardly doubt that many of the individuals called by the
same name differ in their internal constitutions as much as
ones that are ranked under different specific names. But
the supposition that exactly the same internal constitution
always goes with the same specific name encourages men to
take those names to represent those real essences, though
really they signify only the complex idea in the speaker’s
mind. . . . This is bound to cause a great deal of uncertainty
in men’s discourses, especially of those who have thoroughly
absorbed the doctrine of substantial forms, by which, they
are sure, the species of things are fixed and distinguished.
Chapter x: The misuse of words
proposed essences. What would the point be of enquiring
whether this or that thing has the real essence of the species
man if we didn’t suppose that such a specific essence was
known to us? which yet is utterly false. . . .
[In section 22 Locke presents his sixth misuse of words,
which he says is ‘more general, though perhaps less observed’
than the others. It consists in assuming too confidently
that others mean the same by a given word as one does
oneself, a misuse of which both speakers and hearers are
often guilty. He cites the word ‘life’ as one that turns out to
be far from having exactly the same meaning in the minds of
all English-speakers, though most people would feel almost
insulted if they were asked to explain what they mean by
‘life’. It is important to ask such questions, Locke says,
because:] This misuse of taking words on trust has nowhere
spread so far nor with such ill effects as amongst men of
letters. Why have there been so many, and such obstinate,
disputes laying waste the intellectual world? The main cause
has been the poor use of words. For though it is generally
believed that there is great diversity of opinions in the books
and debates the world is distracted with, it seems to me that
the learned men on the opposite sides of controversies are
merely speaking different languages. I suspect that if they
got away from words and attended to things, and became
clear about what they think, it would turn out that they all
think the same—though they might differ in what they want.
[In section 21 Locke says that the ‘preposterous’ belief that
we are referring to real essences is visibly at work when
men ask such questions as whether a certain monkey or
‘monstrous foetus’ is a man or not. If they knew that they
can only use ‘man’ to name their complex idea of man, they
would see that there is nothing to wonder or argue about.
He continues:] In this wrong way of using the names of
substances, two false suppositions are contained. First, that
nature makes all particular things according to certain precise
essences, by which they are distinguished into species. Of
course everything has a real constitution that makes it
what it is, and on which its sensible qualities depend; but
I think I have proved that this doesn’t underlie our sorting,
distinguishing, and naming of the species. Secondly, this
·mistake· also tacitly insinuates that we have ideas of these
23. To conclude this consideration of the imperfection and
misuse of language: the ends of language in our discourse
with others are chiefly 1 to make one man’s thoughts or
ideas known to another, 2 to do that as easily and quickly
as possible, and 3 thereby to convey knowledge of things.
Language is either misused or deficient when it fails in any
of these three purposes.
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23a. [This is really just a part of 23. The reason for marking it off
seapraately willl appear shortly.] Words fail in the first purpose,
and don’t bring one man’s ideas into the view of others, (1)
when men have words in their mouths with no corresponding determinate ideas in their minds; (2) when they apply
established words of a language to ideas to which common
usage in that language doesn’t apply them, and (3) when
they apply words very unsteadily, making them stand first
for one idea and then for another.
Chapter x: The misuse of words
bookseller whose warehouse contains only unbound volumes, without titles, so that he could make them known
to others only by showing the loose pages. This man is
hindered in his discourse by lack of words to communicate
his complex ideas, so that he is forced to make them known
by an enumeration of the simple ideas that make them up,
with the result that he often has to use twenty words to
express what another man signifies in one.
28. ·A comment on (3) in 23a·: Someone who doesn’t
constantly use the same sign for the same idea, instead using
a word sometimes with one meaning and sometimes with
another, ought to be viewed in academic and social circles
with as much disapproval as someone who in commercial
circles sells different things under the same name.
24. Secondly, men fail to convey their thoughts as quickly
and easily as they could, when they have complex ideas without having any distinct names for them. This is sometimes
the fault of the language itself, which doesn’t contain a word
with the required meaning; and sometimes the fault of the
man, who hasn’t yet learned the word for the idea he wants
to exhibit to his hearer.
29. ·A comment on (2) in 23a·: Someone who applies the
words of a language to ideas different from those to which
the common use of that country applies them won’t be able
to convey much to other people by the use of those words
unless he defines them—even if he has much to convey. . . .
25. Thirdly, no knowledge of things is conveyed by men’s
words when their ideas don’t agree with the reality of things.
This is basically a defect in our •ideas, which are defective in
not being as true to the nature of things as they would be if
we were more careful and thorough; but it also stretches out
to become a defect in our •words too, when we use them as
signs of real things that don’t exist and never did.
30. ·A comment on 25·: Someone who imagines to himself
substances such as never have existed, and fills his head
with ideas that don’t correspond to the real nature of things,
and gives these ideas settled and defined names, may fill his
discourse and perhaps his hearer’s head with the fantastical
imaginations of his own brain, but he’ll be far from advancing
a step in real and true knowledge.
26. ·A comment on (1) in 23a·: Someone who has words
of a language with no distinct ideas in his mind to be their
meanings uses them in conversation only make a noise
without any sense or meaning; and no matter how learned
he may seem through his use of hard words or learned terms,
none of this makes him knowledgeable, any more than a man
would count as learned if he had in his study nothing but
the bare titles of books, without having their the contents. . . .
[Section 31 briefly recapitulates the content of sections
26–30.]
32. In our notions concerning substances we are liable to
all those mishaps. For example, someone •who uses the
word ‘tarantula’ without having any idea of what it stands
for,. . . .•who in a newly discovered country sees various sorts
27. ·A comment on 24·: Someone who has complex ideas
without particular names for them is no better off than a
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of animals and vegetables,. . . .but can speak of them only
by descriptions,. . . .•who uses the word ‘body’ sometimes
for pure extension and sometimes for extension and solidity
together,. . . .•who uses the word ‘horse’ with the meaning
common usage gives to ‘mule’,. . . .•who thinks the word
‘centaur’ stands for some real thing. . . .
Chapter x: The misuse of words
making; so these ideas can hardly be found to disagree with
anything existing! I don’t have them in my mind as copies of
things regularly made by nature, or as ·ideas of· properties
inseparably flowing from the internal constitution or essence
of any substance. I have them only as patterns lodged in my
memory, with names attached to them, to apply to actions
and relations as they come to exist. . . .
33. With modes and relations generally we are liable only to
the first four of these troubles. 1 I may have in my memory
the names of modes, for example ‘gratitude’ or ‘charity’
and yet have no precise ideas attached in my thoughts to
those names. 2 I may have ideas and not know the words
that express them. For example, I may have the idea of a
man’s drinking till his colour and mood are altered, till his
tongue trips, his eyes look red, and his feet fail him—and
yet not know that the word for this is ‘drunkenness’. 3
I may have the ideas of virtues or vices, and have names
for them also, but apply the names wrongly. For example
when I apply the word ‘frugality’ to the idea that others
signify by ‘covetousness’. 4 I may use any of those names
in an inconstant manner. 5 But with modes and relations
I can’t have ideas disagreeing with the existence of things;
for modes are complex ideas that my mind makes at its
pleasure, and relations come from considering or comparing
two things together, and so they are also ideas of my own
34. Wit and imagination get a better welcome in the world
than dry truth and real knowledge; so people will hardly
think that the use of figurative language and ·literary· allusion constitutes an imperfection or misuse of language. In
contexts where we seek pleasure and delight rather than
information and improvement, such ornaments are indeed
not faults. But if we want to speak of things as they are,
we must allow that all the art of rhetoric (except for order
and clearness)—all the artificial and figurative application of
words that eloquence has invented—serve only to insinuate
wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the
judgment; and so they are perfect cheats. . . . It is evident
how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since
rhetoric—that powerful instrument of error and deceit—has
its established practitioners, is publicly taught, and has
always been highly regarded. No doubt I will be thought rash
or oafish to have spoken against it. . . .
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xi: Remedies
Chapter xi: The remedies of those imperfections and misuses
amongst mankind’. Sections 5 and 6 expand this thought
with angry passion.]
1. We have examined at length the imperfections, both
natural and contrived, of languages. As speech is the
great bond that holds society together, and the channel
through which knowledge is conveyed •from man to man and
•down the generations, it would be thoroughly worthwhile
to consider seriously what remedies are to be found for the
above-mentioned troubles.
7. ‘Is a bat a bird?’ That isn’t the question—which it would be
quite absurd to ask—whether a bat is something other than
what it is, or has qualities other than those it has. There
are two questions that could be being asked. 1 Between
people who admit to being not quite clear about just what
a bat is and just what a bird is, the question may arise as
part of an endeavour to learn whether all the simple ideas to
which in combination they both give the name ‘bird’ are all
to be found in a bat. Understood in this way, it is a question
asked only by way of enquiry, not dispute. 2 The question
might come up between disputants one of whom says that
a bat is a bird while the other denies this. In that case the
question is purely about the meaning of ‘bat’ or of ‘bird’ or
of both. . . . If the disputants agreed about the meanings
of these two names, there couldn’t possibly be any dispute
about them. [The section continues with the suggestion that
most disputes are ‘merely verbal’, reflecting differences in
what people mean by the same word.]
2. I would cut a ridiculous figure if I tried to effect a complete
reform of the language of my own country, let alone of the
languages of the world! To require that men use their words
always in the same sense, and only for determined and
uniform ideas, would be to think that all men should have
the same notions and should talk only of what they have
clear and distinct ideas of; and no-one can try to bring that
about unless he is vain enough to think he can persuade
men to be either very knowing or very silent!. . . .
3. Well, the shops and business offices can be left to their
own ways of talking, and social chatter can be allowed to
continue as it always has. But, though the schools and
men of argument might object to any proposal to make their
disputes shorter or fewer, I think that those who claim to
search seriously after truth, or to maintain it, ought to study
how they might say what they have to say without obscurity,
doubtfulness, or ambiguity—to all of which men’s words are
naturally liable if care is not taken.
8. To provide some remedy for the defects of speech that I
have mentioned, and to prevent the troubles that follow from
them, I think it would be useful to conform to the following
rules. First, a man should take care to use no word without
a meaning, no name without an idea that he makes it stand
for. [The remainder of the section sketches evidence that this
rule is often broken.]
[In sections 4–6 Locke adds colour and detail to his picture
of the prevalence of misuses of language and of the damage
that they do. In section 4 he says there is reason to suspect
that ‘language, as it has been employed, has contributed
less to the improvement than to the hindrance of knowledge
9. Secondly, it isn’t enough for a man to use his words
as signs of some ideas; the ideas must be •if simple then
clear and distinct, and •if complex then determinate—that
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xi: Remedies
11. Thirdly, it isn’t enough that men have ideas, determined
ideas, for which they make these signs stand; they must also
do their careful best to give their words meanings that are
as near as possible to the ones common usage has attached
them to. For words, especially in languages already formed,
are •no man’s private possession but rather •the common
measure of commerce and communication, so no-one is at
liberty to please himself about what to mean by them—and
if you really need to change a word’s meaning you should
declare that you are doing so. ·And that oughtn’t to happen
often·. aim in speaking is or should be to be understood,
and that will be thwarted if we give frequent explanations,
demands, and other such awkward interruptions that occur
when men don’t follow common usage. . . .
is, he must have a definite collection of simple ideas firmly
in mind, and have attached to it a word that is his sign of
just that collection and no other. [The section continues with
remarks about the need for this, and about how it is flouted
in people’s uses of words like ‘justice’. Locke describes the
procedure one would have to go through to be sure and clear
about one’s meaning for ‘justice’, and then continues:] I don’t
say that a man should recall this analysis and run through
it in detail every time he encounters the word ‘justice’; but
he should at least be able to do that when he wants to, as
a result of having examined the meaning of the word and
settled the idea of all its parts in his mind. . . . This •exactness
may be thought to be too much trouble, and therefore most
men will let themselves off from settling the complex ideas
of mixed modes so precisely in their minds. But until they
do this they can expect to have a great deal of obscurity and
confusion in their own minds and a great deal of wrangling
in their conversations with others.
[In section 12 Locke says (‘Fourthly’) that there imay be a
legitimate need to declare clearly and explicitly what one
means by some word. One may be introducing a useful new
word, or using a common word in a new sense.]
13. The ideas that men’s words stand for are of different
sorts, and there are corresponding differences in the ways
of making clear, as needed, what those ideas are. Definition
is ·generally· thought to be the right way to make known
the proper meaning of a word; but •some words can’t be
defined; •others have meanings that can’t be elucidated
except through definition; and perhaps there is •a third kind
of word that has something in common with each of the
other two kinds ·in being capable of having their meanings
explained through definitions or in other ways·. Let us see
all this in action in connection with the names of •simple
ideas, •modes, and •substances.
10. More is required for a right use of the names of substances than merely determined ideas. Here the names
must also fit things as they exist; but I shall say more about
this later ·in sections 19–25·. This •exactness is absolutely
necessary in the search for philosophical and scientific
knowledge, and in controversies about truth. It would be
good if it also carried over into common conversation and
the ordinary affairs of life, but I suppose that’s hardly to
be expected. Unlearned notions suit unlearned talk; and
although both are confused enough they still serve quite
well the market and the village fête. Merchants and lovers,
cooks and tailors, have the words they need to conduct
their ordinary affairs; and I think the same might also be
true of philosophers and disputants if they really wanted to
understand and be clearly understood.
14. First, when a man uses the name of a simple idea, and
sees that it isn’t understood or risks being misunderstood, he
ought. . . .to declare his meaning. I have shown that he can’t
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do this with a definition (·iv.7·); and he has only two other
resources. He can •name some object in which ·a quality
signified by· that simple idea is to be found—e.g. telling a
farmer what ‘feuillemorte’ means, by saying that it is the
colour of withered leaves falling in autumn. But the only
sure way of telling someone the meaning of the name of any
simple idea is •by presenting to his senses an object which
produces in his mind the idea that word stands for.
xi: Remedies
physical sense is something the scientists may dispute about,
but it doesn’t affect the moral man—so to call him—which
is this immovable unchangeable idea, a corporeal rational
being. For if we found a monkey or any other creature that
had enough use of reason to be able to understand general
signs and to draw conclusions using general ideas, he would
no doubt be subject to law and in that sense be ‘a man’,
however much he differed in shape from the rest of us. The
names of substances, if they are used as they should be, can
no more make trouble in moral discourses than they do in
mathematical ones: if a mathematician speaks of a cube or
globe of gold, he has his clear settled idea that doesn’t vary
even if by mistake he is applying it to a particular body that
isn’t gold.
[In section 15 (‘Secondly’) Locke turns to mixed modes. Because they are constructions of ideas voluntarily put together
by the mind, someone who employs a name of a mixed mode
is perfectly placed to define it, i.e. set out explicitly what he
means by it; and because they have no patterns in nature,
their names can’t be explained in any other way. Locke
objects fiercely to obscurity in ‘moral discourses’, because
the topic is of great importance and there is no excuse for
unclarity because the cure for it—verbal definition—is easy
to provide.]
[In section 17 Locke repeats and develops a little his view
that the defining of names of mixed modes is important
(especially in moral discourses) and easy, so that there is
no excuse for not doing it:] It is far easier for men •to form
an idea to serve as their standard for the name ‘justice’, so
that actions fitting that pattern will be called ‘just’, than
•to see Aristides and form an idea that will in all things be
exactly like him. Aristides is as he is, whatever idea men
choose to make of him! For •the former, all they need is
to know the combination of ideas that are put together in
their own minds; for •the latter they must enquire into the
whole nature and abstruse hidden constitution and various
qualities of ·Aristides·, a thing existing outside them.
16. That is why I venture to think that morality is capable
of demonstration, as well as mathematics. The precise
real essences—·which are also the nominal essences·—of
the things that moral words stand for can be perfectly
known; and so the congruity and incongruity of the things
themselves can be certainly discovered, which is to say that
there can be perfect knowledge of them. It may be objected
that the names of substances are often used in morality, and
that they will introduce obscurity; but they won’t. When
substances are involved in moral discourses, their various
natures aren’t being enquired into but presupposed. For
example, when we say that man is subject to law, all we
mean by ‘man’ is a corporeal rational creature, with no
concern for what the real essence or other qualities of that
creature are. Whether a certain imbecile is a man in a
[Section 18 repeats that verbal definition is our only way of
making the meanings of such names clearly known.]
19. Thirdly, for explaining the meanings of the names
of substances, as they stand for the ideas we have of
their different species, each of the previously mentioned
ways—showing and defining—is often needed. Within our
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complex idea of a kind of substance there are usually a
few •leading qualities to which we suppose the other ideas
to be attached; and we readily apply the specific name to
anything that has that •characteristic mark that we take to
be the most distinguishing idea of that species. These salient
or characteristic ideas (so to call them) are mostly of shape
in the species of animals and plants, and of colour (and
sometimes shape as well) in inanimate bodies, as I pointed
out in vi.29 and ix.15.
xi: Remedies
and such a kind of exterior—i.e. that it can’t join itself to
and inform a body unless the body has such and such an
outward structure?
21. These leading qualities are best made known by showing,
and can hardly be made known in any other way. Seeing a
horse or an ostrich will give an idea of its shape a thousand
times better than could be done in words; and the only way
to get idea of the particular colour of gold isn’t by description
but by frequently seeing it; which is why people who are
used to gold can often tell true gold from counterfeit, pure
gold from alloy, by sight alone, where the rest of us, though
are eyes are all right, can’t see any difference because we
don’t have the precise fine-grained idea of that particular
yellow. . . .
20. Now, these leading perceptible qualities are •the chief
ingredients in our ideas of species of substances, which
makes them also •the most conspicuous and invariable
elements in the definitions of our names of those species.
The sound ‘man’ is in itself as apt to signify animality and
rationality, united in the same subject as to signify any other
complex idea; but when we use that sound to stand for
creatures that we count as being of our own kind, it may
be that outward shape is as essential an ingredient in our
complex idea as any other. So it won’t be easy to show that
Plato’s ‘featherless biped’ is a worse definition than ‘rational
animal’ for the word ‘man’, as a label for creatures of that sort.
For the leading quality that most often seems to determine
that species is shape, rather than a faculty of reasoning;
indeed, reason doesn’t show up in the early stages of human
life, and in some it never shows up. If you don’t agree with
this, I don’t see how you can avoid condemning as murderers
those who kill new-born monsters (as we call them) because
of their extraordinary shape, without knowing whether they
have a rational soul—for that question can’t be answered
at the birth of any infant, however it is shaped. And ·you
can’t get out of this by pleading that the strange shape is
evidence for the lack of a rational soul·: who has told us that
a rational soul can’t inhabit a lodging that doesn’t have such
22. But many of the simple ideas that make up our specific
ideas of substances are powers that are not immediately
observable in the ordinary appearance of the things; so in
explaining our names of substances we do better if part of the
meaning is given by enumerating those simple ideas rather
than showing the substance itself. If someone has acquired
through sight the idea of the yellow shining colour of gold,
and then adds to that—from my enumerating them—the
ideas of great ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility
in aqua regia, he will have a more complete idea of gold
than he could get just by seeing a piece of gold and thereby
imprinting on his mind its obvious qualities. But if the formal
constitution ·or real essence· of this shining, heavy, ductile
thing lay open to our senses as does the formal constitution
or essence of a triangle, the meaning of the word ‘gold’ might
as easily be ascertained as that of ‘triangle’.
23. This reminds us of how much the foundation of all
our knowledge of the physical world lies in our senses.
Unembodied spirits are sure to have much better knowledge
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xi: Remedies
those ideas in our use of them. We must also •acquaint
ourselves with the natural history of each species that we
speak about, ·on that basis· •rectify and settle our complex
idea belonging to the name of the species, and when there is
a need for it •explain to others what the complex idea is that
we use the name to stand for. [The remainder of the section
exclaims about what a great need for this is created by the
sloppiness of most people’s talk and thought.]
and ideas of these things than we have; but we haven’t the
slightest idea about how they might get such knowledge. The
whole extent of our knowledge or imagination reaches only
as far as our own ideas, which are limited to our ways of
perception. It isn’t to be doubted that spirits of a higher rank
than those immersed in flesh ·as we are· may have as clear
ideas of the radical constitution of substances as we have
of a triangle, and so perceive how all their properties and
operations flow from that; but we can’t conceive how they
could come by that knowledge.
25. So it would be a good thing if people who are experienced
in scientific enquiries, and acquainted with the various
sorts of natural bodies, would list the simple ideas—·or
rather the corresponding qualities·—which they observe the
individuals of each sort to have in common. That would
remove much of the confusion that occurs when different
people apply the same name to smaller or larger collections
of perceptible qualities, in proportion to the breadth or the
carefulness of their experiences of the species in question.
But a dictionary of that sort—containing a natural history,
so to speak—would require too many people, as well as
too much time, cost, trouble and intelligence, ever to be
hoped for. Lacking that, we must content ourselves with
such definitions of the names of substances as explain the
meanings that men give to them in use. It would be good
if those, at least, were provided when there is a need for
them; but this isn’t usually done. [Locke continues with
remarks about the need for such clarifications; and about
the shortage of them, which he traces to a misplaced confidence that the meanings of common words are settled and
uniform, and to a misguided sense that there is something
shameful in having about to ask about meanings. He goes
on:] Though such a dictionary as I mentioned above would
be too demanding to be hoped for these days, I still think it is
reasonable to suggest that words standing for things that are
24. But although definitions serve to explain our substancenames as they stand for our ideas, they do a poor job of
explaining them as they stand for things. For our names
of substances are not merely signs of our ideas; they are
also used ultimately to represent things, and so are put
in the place of things; therefore their meaning must agree
with the truth of things as well as with men’s ideas. Where
substances are concerned, therefore, we shouldn’t always
rest content with the ordinary complex idea that is commonly
accepted as the meaning of that word. Instead we should go
a little further and enquire into the nature and properties of
the things themselves, and thereby make our ideas of their
species as complete as possible. For since their names are
meant to stand not only for •the complex idea in other men’s
minds that in their ordinary meaning they stand for, but
also for •collections of simple ideas [here = ‘qualities’] that really
do exist in things themselves, their names can’t be defined
properly unless natural history is enquired into and their
properties are discovered through careful examination. For
avoiding troubles in discourse and disputes about natural
bodies and substantial things, it isn’t enough merely to have
learned the confused or otherwise imperfect idea that gives
each word its common meaning, and to keep the words to
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known and distinguished by their outward shapes should be
expressed by little pictures of them. A vocabulary-list made
in that way could perhaps teach the true meanings of many
terms, especially in languages of remote countries or ages,
more easily and quickly than do all the large and laborious
comments of learned critics. Naturalists who treat of plants
and animals have found the benefits of this procedure, and
anyone who has had occasion to consult their pictures will
have reason to concede that he has a clearer idea of apium
or ibex from a little print of that plant or animal than he
xi: Remedies
could have from a long definition of the names of either of
them. [The section continues with further examples.]
[In sections 26–7 Locke says that men often change what
they mean by a word in the course of a single discourse,
and that sometimes they are ‘forced’ to do this because ‘the
provision of words is so scanty in respect to the infinite
variety of thoughts’. In some cases the context makes clear
enough what change has occurred; but where it does not do
so the speaker or writer ought to declare the change openly.]
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